Cottage Quilting Bee: The Modern Take on Quarter-Square Triangles

Ever since I signed on with the Cottage Quilting Bee, I have been coming up with ideas for my month and let me tell you, it's changed a number of times. That's not the only thing that changed... life has changed a lot as well. My husband and I bought our first house and moved in at the end of August. We also found out that we will be welcoming our first child in February 2010. So many changes, so many opportunities to have my talented comrades in the quilting bee contribute to something new and special for our home. I finally decided to go big... I have never tackled a queen-sized quilt and we are need of more bedding now that we have a guest room. Would you guys like to help me out?

The idea I ended up being most drawn to are triangles. I have loved looking at the flying geese and star quilts and came close to choosing one of those for a quilt bee project. However, I really wanted to find a traditional pattern that I could offer a modern take on. In reviewing the book, "The Art of Classic Quiltmaking," by Harriet Hargrove and Sharyn Craig, I found a pattern for Quarter-Square Triangles and a vision started to come together. Brace yourself, I am going to try to explain the step-by-step details of getting this done.

The fabric: This has already been a learning experience. Something was wrong with my math initially, hence trip number 2 to the fabric store. For the background color in this quilt, I'm using a soft gray color. I am going for a monochromatic look with each block, so there will be white blocks, orange blocks, green blocks, and pink blocks. You'll recognize fabrics by Amy Butler, Heather Ross, Erin McMorris, Tula Pink and some others.

There are four fabrics that will be sent out in each color. You are welcome to take from your stash as long as you keep with the same color. My nitpicky request is that you do not include white background fabrics unless you have a white block.


The block:
The size of the block will be 16.5 by 16.5. Inside each block there are four 8.5 by 8.5 inch blocks. Here are directions to make each 8.5 inch mini-block.

1. First, you will need lots of triangles. You will need 8 gray triangles and 8 colored triangles. We are going for 4 inch quarter-square triangles, meaning the long edge of the triangle will be 4 inches when finished.

2. A method: no templates. To cut without templates, add 1 1/4 inches to the finished long edge of the triangle. For us, that's 5 1/4. The fabric I've sent out should cut easily into 5 1/4 by 5 1/4 squares. Cut both colored and gray fabric into 5 1/4 by 5/1/4 squares. The fabrics I sent out should be easily cut to these measurements (I pre-measured it all).




Then cut from corner to corner twice to get four triangles.





3. Sew the triangles into little squares.






4. Sew the little squares into each miniblock.




Tip: Set up your next block next to your completed one so that the colors coordinate. I did it wrong the first time and when I put the two blocks next to eachother, the gray/color flow was disrupted. Here is what I did to make sure the colors matched up.



5. Sew 4 miniblocks together to make the 16.5 by 16.5 inch block.





DONE!

Please let me know if my directions are not clear, this is my first time sharing sewing directions.

Thanks so much for helping me with this quilt!